The interview lasted five hours. Emmanuel Macron began his diplomatic week under high tension by meeting this Monday in Moscow Vladimir Putin.
At the start of this interview in the Kremlin, the French president told his Russian counterpart that “the discussion can initiate what we need to go towards, which is a de-escalation”. He added that he wanted to “start building a useful response collectively for Russia and for all the rest of Europe”. Vladimir Putin then welcomed the “efforts” of Paris to “solve the problem of security in Europe”, in particular that aimed at “finding a settlement to the crisis” in Ukraine.
Putin says willing to avoid military escalation
At the end of the five hours of tete-a-tete, the two heads of state held a press conference. Emmanuel Macron said he had proposed to Vladimir Putin to “build concrete security guarantees” for all the states involved in the crisis. “President Putin assured me of his readiness to commit to this logic and of his desire to maintain the stability and territorial integrity of Ukraine”, added the French president, referring to “terms of convergence”. between Russia and France, without detailing them.
For his part, the master of the Kremlin assured that he was ready to do everything to find compromises and avoid a military escalation. He notably affirmed that neither he nor Emmanuel Macron wants a Russia-NATO war which “would have no winner”.
A discussion around a long white table
The two men had started their meeting in the Kremlin seated on either side of a long white table, a format that Vladimir Putin adopted recently during his meetings with foreign dignitaries, due to the pandemic.
Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Moscow comes amid rising tensions between Westerners and Russia, accused of having massed tens of thousands of troops on the Ukrainian border in preparation for an invasion.
A “critical” situation
US intelligence has estimated that Russia already has 70% of the capability needed for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Emmanuel Macron, for his part, estimated the number of soldiers deployed on the borders of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus at 125,000.
A current situation in Europe “critical” which requires “to be extremely responsible”, in the words of the French president. For Emmanuel Macron, the objective is: “to avoid war” and “to build elements of confidence, stability, visibility for everyone”. He is the first major Western leader to meet the Russian president since tensions escalated in December.
However, nothing concrete will ultimately come out of this face-to-face. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Monday morning that Emmanuel Macron had promised to come “with ideas in the quest for relaxation”, before judging the situation “too complex to expect decisive breakthroughs after a single encounter”.
In front of Vladimir Putin, Emmanuel Macron insisted above all on the fact that his position was “coordinated” with his European and American allies, who all rejected the Kremlin’s demands for the end of NATO’s enlargement policy, which would close the door to Ukraine. The continuation in Kiev this Tuesday. Germany will send 350 additional soldiers to Lithuania to help strengthen NATO’s eastern flank, the defense minister announced on Monday.